2014 F1 season

Mark Webber would have been at a disadvantage under the new rules had he continued to race in F1 in 2014, according to Red Bull’s Adrian Newey.

Webber left F1 at the end of last season to compete in the World Endurance Championship. As one of F1’s taller drivers, his higher weight had hindered the team’s efforts to get his car down to the minimum weight limit without sacrificing performance.

Drivers are under greater pressure to trim down this year due to the increased weight of the new engines, despite the minimum weight limit rising to 691kg this year.

But I think it’s good that we will have less downforce this year, because it was easier to drive cars with more downforce. I just fear that teams will claw back all that downforce from last year and will add even more.

Slimming down is harder if you’re physically larger – there’s less you can do about it. Jenson Button is having similar issues, as reported recently – he knows that a kilogram less body weight is worth a couple of tenths at some tracks. If you’re small and muscular it’s easy to lose more weight – Alonso is probably dieting too. Allegedly Hamilton is looking thinner these days as well.

I think Adrian Newey is second to none when it comes to aerodynamics but I don’t understand how this comment makes sense at all. With abundance of torque provided by new power-train few kilos more on drivers side are virtually nothing.
In my opinion everyone using Renault power-train will be disadvantaged – Mark Weber or Benny Hill, same thing – they would be similary impressive.

@Boomerang The cars have a 691kg minimum weight including the driver. If they cannot fit the driver’s weight within a weight limit they have to run the car with bigger weight sacrificing performance. What torque has to do with it I don’t know

The drivers weight is important because if he is light enough, they can make a car underweight and place the equalising ballast at a point in the car which benefits performance, i.e. C of G or Polar Moment of Inertia.

@baron That was the case last year and before that. This year as was explained by Gary Anderson on Autosport the teams struggle to just get the minimum weight at all without any thinking of ballast. See the Newey quote above: “With Sebastian [Vettel] and Daniel [Ricciardo] we will reach the limit by the skin of our teeth”

Nothing new Mansell had find upto half a sec at some tracks when he was paired up with Prost.
It’s getting out of hand you have to be a jockey to fit in the modern cars, raise the weight so more drivers have equal opportunity. Drivers like Berger, Frenzen, Piquet, Jones to name a few wouldn’t even get a look in now.

I remember Webber saying that in Hungary they had to put more fuel in the car in practice just to hide their pace because the RB6 was so quick that weekend. In quali, both cars were one-two and Alonso in third was over a second off pole. Great car.

The RB6 was probably the car with the most downforce in the history of F1, more even than the legendary spoiler cars of the 1980s. We measured up to 5.5G of lateral acceleration.
“It could go flat out through Copse at Silverstone, and on the sharp bend on the back straight at Barcelona [Campsa].”

Thanks heaven Newey admitted it because some people here were claiming that it wasn’t too dominant

the 2011 car with exhaust-blowing didn’t quite reach that of the 2010 car when double diffusers were legal

Do you mean blown diffuser ?? Because i think double diffusers were banned in 2010 or maybe i am missing something ?